tree branch paths for lines

Latest work using trees and branches for two circular curves.

maps

storage yesterday and today

yesterday's storage:  architecture is containment / production
today's storage:  architecture is process/conveyance

Paradigm Map: Global Logistical Landscapes

Map Title:  Global Technology & Organizational Space, Landscapes of Surplus

Thesis is a projection of a new narrative over the effects that global supply chain logistics will have on the urban landscape.  It anticipates the increasing vastness of network of surplus which will foster a new urban typology.

  

Current trajectory of paradigmatic issues and charting of academic discourse related to the thesis is at hand.  Question for the thesis then is if interests lie in amplifying the potential latent urban conditions of a emerging global logistical landscapes or synthesizing the various paradigms of logistics landsapes
and speculating over trajectories that might result in new kinds of built artifacts.

There is also the issue of scale that has not been decided in this thesis:  a global, regional, urban, or architectural.  It would be ideal if the design proposal capture all these levels at various scales, but it will likely be be an amalgamation of each level.

Next week's program assignment will likely force the issue of thesis interests and scale to be determined.

Cargo Cult

wiki link on the influence of cargo on culture: cargo culture

Contacts between members of different cultures can often produce misunderstandings. These misunderstandings are not limited to an isolated society's first contact with the other cultures—a result, for example, of exploration, colonization, missionary efforts or warfare. Often people will have doubts about the fully human nature of those being encountered: outsiders will also have difficulties understanding those from the isolated society. Attempts may be made by both sides to fit the contact into the existing beliefs of the culture, with members of the other culture being assimilated to various non-human roles: spirits, demons, animals.^{[citation needed]} With time, each culture learns that the others are mortal and that their respective material cultures differ in important ways. Disagreements often arise over how parts of this material culture (whether manufactured goods (the "cargo") or handicrafts) are shared. In cargo cults, natives develop rituals that express their disagreements with outsiders who refuse to share cargo on acceptable terms.

project 03_partTOsurface

From project 03_partTOsurface brief:

Utilizing Rhinocerous, with the grasshopper plug-in, develop a surface model that aggregates a solid 3 dimensional part – of your design. Consider not only the variation of the driving brep surface through the manipulation of control points, lines, etc, but also the variation of the part and the possible layering of multiple skin systems for greater depth and effect. Project should follow and expand on the techniques covered in class and blog.


Produce, either in whole or fragmented form a 3D print of your surface. In this process careful attention must be paid to constructing a well formed ‘water tight’ part that falls within the tolerances dictated by the chosen printing material (ABS plastic or gypsum.) As cost is always a factor with 3D printing – this assignment is more about exploring the potentials of variation in the invented system and having a successful demonstrative print – than producing an elaborate and expensive model. For all intents and purposes, consider this a trial run of a prototyping technology that may be utilized to a greater extent in the final project.

Five curves were lofted in the grasshopper definition with two attractor points near each quadrant of the surface.  2 variable components in an octagonal form were created and differentiated across surface according to area size.

Grasshoper logic:

Construction lines:

 Lofted surface:

Two parts (open + double open):

Parts to surface differentiated:

3-D output:

Paradigm Map: Draft

The paradigm map is a collection of terms, texts, projects, and educational programs. The structure of the map is created by the main terms being in a heavy bold text with the person or persons responsible for the term in italics above the term. The thin text is projects, texts, and educational programs with the same notation for people associated with the projects. The terms and projects are grouped in adjacency to similarity or connecting terms and projects. The proximity of the words show the proximity of the ideas. The map is separated into two parts, showing the distinction between the two theses.

Thesis Abstract Statement: Revisions2

Redisplaced Cachés

The role of storage in architecture is a recurring theme that has evolved from cyclical agrarian practices of preservation, its necessary linear sequence in industrialization, to post-Fordist economies with centers of flexible capital. The emergence of storage facilities, as an urban typology, are indicative of a complex but adaptive global network of supply chains at work.  At the same time, they are inextricably linked to fulfill suburbia’s consumption demands and prepare their over accumulation of goods consumed. Technologies of robotic automation, climate control, refrigeration, and data management have significantly facilitated this tightly controlled typology in shaping the landscape of logistics.

Theorists such as Easterling, Delanda, and Berger imply various socio-political roles that storage facilities play in the macro spatial configurations of urbanism.  However, more personal issues such as public interaction, place, domesticity, and commodification of the body are not clarified in this architectural discourse.  At the same time, wider discourse issues are also not fully implicated when storage is simply classified as an urban typology when other valid definitions such as site, non-place or mental construct enter the discussion.  This thesis will then start a more comprehensive analysis and speculation over the role of storage facilities in our daily lives and beyond.

The thesis will first take an empirical approach that will utilize quantitative and visual-spatial methods for research.  Photographic documentary will also be archived and curated.  Research from this analysis will then be projected into a speculative narrative to in order explore possible scenarios or implications that are worth investigating for the thesis.

The artifacts to be produced throughout this thesis process are GIS spatial analysis mappings, an evolving socio-political entity web, archival and curation of images, and a weekly series of journal entries.

Thesis Abstract Statement DRAFT 1: Redisplaced Cachés

The role of storage in architecture is a recurring theme that has evolved from its cyclical agrarian practices of preservation, a necessary linear step in industrial production, to post-Fordist economies with centers of flexible capital. The emergence of storage facilities, as an urban typology, are indicative of a complex but adaptive global network of supply chains at work. At the same time, they are inextricably linked to fulfill suburbia’s consumption demands and prepare their over accumulation of goods consumed. Technologies of robotic automation, climate control, refrigeration, and data management have significantly facilitated these macro-micro urban factors in shaping the landscape of logistics.

While socio-political implications on the spatial organizations and configurations of storage facilities in urbanity can be implied by Easterling and DeLanda, issues relating to domesticity, technology, and the commodification of the body needs more scrutiny in this architectural discourse. This thesis will then investigate and speculate the more comprehensive role that storage facilities will play in future of urbanism.

The thesis will first take an empirical approach that will utilize visual-spatial quantitative methods for analysis and documentary. Research from this analysis will then be projected into a narrative to in order explore possible scenarios or implications that are worth investigating.

The artifacts to be produced throughout this thesis process are GIS spatial analysis mappings, an evolving socio-political entity web, archival and curation of images, and a weekly series of journal entries.

Site as Thesis: Expatriated Caché

Despite prophetic claims of the digital emancipating from the production of material goods, we are still drowning in an overabundance of stuff that spills out of our house, backyards shed, and now to to distant remote sits. Comparison can be made to yesterday's cave dwelling survivals of food preservation and hiding treasures. However, today's post-Fordist culture is still preoccupied with storage, having propped up a wide and loose network of climate controlled caves. Technology may cope with this accumulation, but at best it only serves to facilitate the quick removal and storage of these goods. What then are the potential social-political implications for such nascent infrastructural networks that holds all our stuff?

  notations:

 collections:

 artifact:

Medical Storage Facility

A multi-million pound state-of-the-art temperature controlled medical storage facility is about to make its way to medics and logistics staff on the front line through a new investment being made by the Ministry of Defence.

KIVA: Warehouse Robots at Work

Logistics Simulation Automated Warehouse

Storage: Furniture to Spaces

"There's a squirrel in all of us:  storing something today so that we can find and use it tomorrow,  next week or next year, is a basic and admirable human impulse.  Few of our possessions are in use at at one time; the rest must be stored away in such as way that can find them at a moment's notice.  Care full storage conserves, prevents deterioration and saves money, careless storage usually causes damages, wastes time and might just as well not be done at all "
(Excerpt from Geoffrey Salmon's Storage c. 1967)

"It is little wonder than that many of the first furniture designs were developed as storage devices.  In the Middle Ages, people were not burdened with a great many  possessions, partly because there were not easy means for producing things in great quantity, partly because the powerful Church was hostile to unnecessary possessions and there were sumpturary laws that limited conspicuous private consumption.  Nevertheless, storage was an important concern.  What possessions people did have that we not in constant use were put away on the ground floor of the house in storeroom that shared the space with stables and perhaps an armory.  One all important piece of furniture at the time as the chest.  People carried entire household about with them as they followed the court or the hunt.  Nearly everything they owned went into a portable packing chests, and at each destination these chest became essential furniture-both for continued storage and for seating and tables.     Only when life became less itinerant and different rooms in the house developed specific functions did more elaborate furniture come into being."
(Excerpt from Melinda Davis' A House and Garden Book:  Storage in the Home c. 1978)

"The human squirrel will certainly think out new places and ways to store his possessions in the future.  One big question remains.  Will our homes be designed recognizing not only that our living activities have changed during the last decade, but that our storage needs will probably double during the next. "
(Excerpt from Geoffrey Salmon's Storage c. 1967)

Bunkers Gone Bonkers

Expatriated Cache's are the small scaled to the body network of temporary accessible spaces of today.  A quick run to yesterday's caves to stow away treasures have now turned into mail delivery drop off points int the city.  Set in opposition to Expatriated Caches are the geologic time-capsule spaces of that glares of monumentality.  See US Bunkers as follows:

U.S. Bunkers, Inc. is a company dedicated to developing massive, portable, aerodynamic, monolithic, steel reinforced, fiber concrete, high-tech strucures. We desing structures for many diferent applications, but they all have one thing in common. These structures are entirely designed to protect and save the lives of groups of people, and maintain them if necessary for hours or days with extreme security and maximum comfort. These structures come equipped with all the comforts of home in a minimal dimension. The structures designed and built by U.S. Bunkers have civil, Industrial and Military applications. We manufacture units to protect not only human lives but also valuables such as art, jewelry, money, collectibles, vehicles, motorcycles, documents and animals. Our animal units go all the way from dogs and cats, to race horses and stallions.

project 02_2Dpatterning

From project 02_2Dpatterning brief:

The intentions of this project is to begin to explore the parametric capabilities of Rhinoceros with Grasshopper through a creation of a 2D graphic patterning system.  Design a system that allows for the progressive variation of apart that in turn produces emergent effects when aggregated into a field.  For more advanced users the 'part' could be 3D.

Circles centered in a field of triangular grid system.  4 attractor points were defined in the grasshopper menu and strategically place with vary levels of attraction.

The baked result from grasshopper.

Final output:

Doors are but a subgroup of interfaces

Before door handles, doors themselves were a farce. Interfering with a young door would guarantee abandonment by the parent doors, and so many people chose to adorn their rooms with as many as 15 doorways, using each only once as needed; after this, a different room would be occupied. The door handle changed all this, as summed up the famous writings of Pepys: “It is a discovery of no little importance, this Door Handle. Applied meritoriously to the surface of the door, we are left with a device of startling ingenuity. However, the problem is not yet entirely solved. If only there was some device that could be used to securely hold the door in place, to stave away the impecunious assays of the world! Sadly I can think of no such device.” (Sammy P's Whirlwind Factbook)

fast, cheap, and easy but what about spimes?

consider this, spimes are:
1. Small, cheap way of remotely id'ing objects over short distance (see RFID).
2. Mechanism to precisely locate something (see GPS)
3. Method of mining and finding stuff in large data (see Google)
4. Tool to virtually construct any type of object (see Rhino).
5. Ways to rapidly prototype virtual objects into real ones. (see FabLab)
6. "Crade-to-cradle" life spans for objects.

all six of these things converging at once!
maybe it impossible than for such things as expatriated caches to exist in the future? quick search for your lost or hidden items will reveal where you put those sneakers, thanks to the manufacturers who embedded some digital dna into the nano-fabric of these laces. rise of the "blobjects" perhaps leads to the high commodity aspirations seeking out one's own expatriated caches.